Golfers engage in an ongoing pursuit to improve their game and lower their score. Golfers playing a particular course may take anywhere from 60 to 150 or more shots to complete a round of golf. The goal of any golfer is to improve both the mechanics of his/her golf swing technique and his/her playing strategy in an effort to decrease his/her overall score.
Professional golfers are able to become very familiar with their game, both in terms of how far they can hit a ball using each club, and their stroke accuracy with each of their clubs. Accordingly, a professional golfer will have a repertoire of strokes, adjustments to swing technique, and club types, all of which can be called upon, in combination, in order to respond effectively to the challenges presented by any hole on any golf course. Constant playing, training, and advice from professional caddies or trainers are additionally required to attain this level of skill and experience.
Amateur golfers are not privileged to have equivalent playing and training time and to receive "expert" advice from their playing partners. Therefore, amateur golfers are less likely to be able to systematically recall their particular playing strengths and weaknesses from one round of golf to the next. Moreover, true advancement in honing a golfer's abilities results from repeated practice of the same strokes on the same golf hole to build consistency and reliability. This intensive practice is an arduous process for the amateur golfer who may only play once or twice a month. If repeated play is infrequent, it becomes very difficult to accurately recall previous playing experiences, and the tendency may be for golfers to habitually repeat the same mistakes without realizing it. Instead, if a golfer is able to analyze his/her play to determine what he or she could have done differently after executing a particular combination of golf club type selection and stroke execution, then, over time, the golfer's analysis of his/her game strategy will be improved, as will the consistency of his/her golf swing technique.
A golfer may retain his/her scorecard from previous rounds of golf as a record of his/her play, as a memory aid to previous rounds of play. Typically, scorecards only permit the recordal of the number of shots taken for each hole; they do not provide a means for the golfer to accurately record the distances and other particulars of each shot made on a hole. Accordingly, the amateur golfer lacks a means to compensate for the infrequency of his/her playing opportunities, and to build upon his/her prior playing experiences by developing his/or her skills in response to prior outcomes for each stroke.
Devices are known which will enable a golfer to calculate the distance from the tee to the cup for a particular hole, as a means to assist the golfer in determining how to place his/her shots. U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,071 (Tattershall) is an example of one such device. The Tattershall patent teaches the use of a plurality of schematic aerial representations of the golf holes, upon which are superimposed a plurality of concentric rings radiating out from the position of the cup, in order to provide a indication of the distance from the cup at any particular point on the golf hole, including the tee, the fairway, and the putting green. It is not possible to directly calculate the distance of a shot taken from the tee or some other position unless the ball reached the cup, since the distance determination arcs provide information only with respect to the cup. Tattershall provides a second detailed map of the putting green to provide a more accurate rectilinear grid for distance estimates during putting. The two maps are related to one another by the occurrence on both maps of a single reference point at the edge of the putting green. Thus, to calculate a distance, a player would use the concentric arcs to determine the distance to the reference point, and then use the grid to determine the distance from the reference point to the cup. If the lateral angle of approach of the ball to the putting green is significant (ie. a stroke from the rough, beside the fairway short of the putting green) then the two-part distance determination (to the reference point, and then to the cup), will result in ultimate distances determinations which may be incorrect by 5 yards or more. This inaccuracy, inherent in the use of the Tattershall device, could cause the use of the device to be counterproductive for golfers. If the distance calculation is inaccurate, then a shot which was executed accurately would result in the golfer missing his/her desired target position. This discrepancy would inhibit a player's reliance on his/her instincts relating to swing technique and shot selection, since, inexplicably, he/she would always be doing `something wrong` to miss the calculated shot. The golfer might then adjust his/her swing technique or other factors in order to `correct` his/her game, when, in fact, his/her golf stroke had been executed correctly. The effect of this discrepancy would be particularly pronounced for beginning golfers, as they would be more likely to slice or hook their shots laterally rather than along the centre of the fairway. Accordingly, angular shots would occur more often during their play, potentially causing errors in distance calculations to occur more frequently. Moreover, beginning golfers would be more likely to overcorrect their swing technique in response to perceived errors, since they would be less familiar with golf swing techniques generally. Moreover, the Tattershall device does not teach the benefits to be gained from saving the information of a golfer's experience on one round of play to be used to guide future rounds of play.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,411 (Andrews, Jr.) teaches a golf score card and true distance indicator using circular arcs spaced at convenient intervals as distance indicators. Although Andrews Jr. does suggest the possibility of determining distances from the tee off position as an alternative to distance calculations relative to the cup position, Andrews does not address the fact that different golfers may tee-off from different locations on the same hole, or may wish to calculate intermediate distances, without relation to either the pin or the cup. Moreover, Andrews Jr. does not suggest the use of the golf score card and true distance indicator as a teaching aid for future development of a golfer's play during subsequent rounds of golf.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of improving golf play utilizing a golf distance calculation and stroke recording system.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a means for a player to track and record club selection, shot placement, and other variables for each hole played on a particular golf course and retain this information in an efficient and accessible manner for future reference.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a method for improving golf play by providing a player with the necessary information, derived from previous rounds of play, to compensate for difficulties previously encountered, so as to improve a golfer's score on the present round of play.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for improving golf play by assisting a player to improve shot characteristics and/or avoid repeating mistakes made during previous rounds of play at a given hole.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for improving golf play by providing a simple to use, yet mathematically accurate means for determining shot distances, both in terms of the distance from the pin and the distance of particular shot taken.